It's hard to tell from your picture. How tall are the sides? What is it made out of? Is that grouted tile? What are your plans for lighting? Maybe more pictures would help.

Webster1234! Thanks for the reply. The sides are 14” but the water is about 10” deep. The tank is fiber glass, mad from a “faux slate”, but designed to hold fish or plants by Hager. It’s in the atrium inside my house, which is frosted tile from 1976.

I plan on putting a 36” full spectrum LED made for reefs across the bottom. There should be two pictures. Not sure if the resolution is good enough, may have to reupload.

Welcome to MARSH! We're glad your here. Sounds very non-traditional and interesting. I couldnt access the pics through my phone so I will have to hop on the computer and check them out. Your in good hands with Webster1234, he is pretty knowledgable.

Damsels should be called "eithers".....you either love them or you hate them. They do have a tendancy to get agressive and are a pain to get out of your tank when you finally decide you've had enough haha!

No tank is complete with out a pair of clowns and a nem, great choice! Be forewarned though...clowns have a mind of their own and may choose to host something other than your nem. Mine host a Goni, another pair I have hosted a magfloat for months! Blennies, Dragonettes, Fire Fish are good for your size. A good place to start is by checking out Live Aquaria and just seeing whats out there. It's a good source of information for seeing what fish are reef safe, and which are not. There is a compatability chart, and you can also get a good idea as far as which fish are suitable for your specific size tank. I would avoid tangs with your size tank.

Don't know if you said how long your tank has been up and running, but that would be good to know. Are you dosing anything or planning to? Have you started taking readings? If so what are your levels at?

OK! I'm a supporting member now and seem to be able to upload larger images. I hope the image below shows up in full resolution.

The tank has been up since December 20th. I put live rock, live sand, and a product called Bio-Start in there. I add some of the Bio-Start with water changes, but will add other stuff if beneficial to the tank. I take my water to my LFS and get it tested on a strip with 5 or so color indicators that have always indicated optimal levels. I also purchased a RO/DI system from BRS which is great. I'm getting what looks to be some brown diatom on my live rock, which I've read indicates my cycle is complete. Not sure if I should be checking parameters other than the ones at my LFS to support a reef?

The picture below outlines what I'm planning to do with the tank for light and flow. The power heads are Tunze 6015's (475gph) and the light is a 36" AquaticLife Edge Reef Edition LED. I plan on running the light all the way across the tank, as shown in the picture, tilted up about 30 degrees to give me some more spread towards the back.

I guess I would keep lower light coral back there and more light intense coral towards the front. I ordered Borneman's Aquarium Corals to do a bit more research and see what would best be suited to this setup of mine. Most resources online say to start with zoas or shrooms. But, I ran across an interesting opinion on R2R where the guy says that, yes, they are easier to maintain, but before you know it, your whole tank is full of them and you have to get rid of them somehow to make room for more gnarly stuff. IDK. Some things I was looking at early on were:

​Ricordea Florida Multicolor

Ricordea Yuma Orange

Acanthastrea Dark Red

Acanthastrea Tiger Red

Zoanthus Mix

But not sure if any of these would stymie the tank.

As far as the nem goes, I hope she doesn't kill my livestock or get shredded in the Tunzes. Don't know if I should just let her in the tank first and see what spot she chooses (though I'm sure she could/will move later) then build around that and pray that she is tame and that the clown fish take to her.

Thanks for the replies. MARSH is a great resource and I'm glad there is an active reefing community in Houston. Happy Reefing!

Take some craft mesh and wrap it around that powerhead. That will prevent the nem from getting chopped up.

Being as you are are new to the hobby, I would recommend you start with zoas and shrooms. Learn to test for Calsium, Alkalinity, Magnesium, Phosphate and Nitrate. Dont use API kits. Most people like salifert. Red Sea makes good kits too.

After being able able to get consistent results then learn how to manipulate those parameters. You want to be able to have stable parameters before you add Anything other than soft coral.

Nitrate and phosphate are essentially nutrients where as alk, cal, and mag are coral skeleton building compounds.

To maintain nutrients, think of nutrient export through harvesting macroalgae and use of a protein skimmer. The other three will drop with growth of coralline algae and Stoney coral.

OK! I'm a supporting member now and seem to be able to upload larger images. I hope the image below shows up in full resolution.

The tank has been up since December 20th. I put live rock, live sand, and a product called Bio-Start in there. I add some of the Bio-Start with water changes, but will add other stuff if beneficial to the tank. I take my water to my LFS and get it tested on a strip with 5 or so color indicators that have always indicated optimal levels. I also purchased a RO/DI system from BRS which is great. I'm getting what looks to be some brown diatom on my live rock, which I've read indicates my cycle is complete. Not sure if I should be checking parameters other than the ones at my LFS to support a reef?

The picture below outlines what I'm planning to do with the tank for light and flow. The power heads are Tunze 6015's (475gph) and the light is a 36" AquaticLife Edge Reef Edition LED. I plan on running the light all the way across the tank, as shown in the picture, tilted up about 30 degrees to give me some more spread towards the back.

I guess I would keep lower light coral back there and more light intense coral towards the front. I ordered Borneman's Aquarium Corals to do a bit more research and see what would best be suited to this setup of mine. Most resources online say to start with zoas or shrooms. But, I ran across an interesting opinion on R2R where the guy says that, yes, they are easier to maintain, but before you know it, your whole tank is full of them and you have to get rid of them somehow to make room for more gnarly stuff. IDK. Some things I was looking at early on were:

​Ricordea Florida Multicolor

Ricordea Yuma Orange

Acanthastrea Dark Red

Acanthastrea Tiger Red

Zoanthus Mix

But not sure if any of these would stymie the tank.

As far as the nem goes, I hope she doesn't kill my livestock or get shredded in the Tunzes. Don't know if I should just let her in the tank first and see what spot she chooses (though I'm sure she could/will move later) then build around that and pray that she is tame and that the clown fish take to her.

Thanks for the replies. MARSH is a great resource and I'm glad there is an active reefing community in Houston. Happy Reefing!

Take some craft mesh and wrap it around that powerhead. That will prevent the nem from getting chopped up.

Being as you are are new to the hobby, I would recommend you start with zoas and shrooms. Learn to test for Calsium, Alkalinity, Magnesium, Phosphate and Nitrate. Dont use API kits. Most people like salifert. Red Sea makes good kits too.

After being able able to get consistent results then learn how to manipulate those parameters. You want to be able to have stable parameters before you add Anything other than soft coral.

Nitrate and phosphate are essentially nutrients where as alk, cal, and mag are coral skeleton building compounds.

To maintain nutrients, think of nutrient export through harvesting macroalgae and use of a protein skimmer. The other three will drop with growth of coralline algae and Stoney coral.

Thank you! I’m definitely going to work within this tank’s limitations. The biggest of which is space. I’ll post a picture soon of the inside setup of the tank where I have the skimmer and such.

I see the elaborate setups online where people have sumps, and refugiums, and custom plumbing. Which is awesome, but for this build, I don’t think any of that is possible. Are things like that necessary for certain types of coral? All types of coral?